Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.

If you are a minority, it is important that you have legal ways to defend yourself in the society in which you live.

Too often the result of affirmative action has been an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of parity between blacks and whites that has not yet been achieved in reality...Preferences tend to attack one form of discrimination with another...Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, and sends the message that there is more power in our past suffering than in our present achievements.

Part of our identity is the idea that racism is still there and that we are vulnerable to it. So, the question is, 'How vulnerable?' In other words, is it really a problem for us, or is it just a small thing. How do you evaluate racism in America on a scale of 1 to 10? My suspicion is that most blacks overrate it a bit. Not to say it's not there, but we overrate it because this masking is part of our relationship to the larger society. This is a way we keep whites on the hook. We keep them obligated, and we keep ourselves entitled. There's an incentive, you see, to inflate it a little bit.

Every single progressive education fad of the past thirty years has hurt poor black children.

Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.

Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves.